Episode 184
Sara’s second Kickstarter closed out over $20,000 (🎉) and she shares what she’s learned from her second campaign. If you’re thinking about running a Kickstarter campaign, you’ll want to hear Sara’s tips for creating a compelling Kickstarter Story page, staying organized, and info on changes to the Kickstarter platform.💜 🎙 Become a supporter of the podcast! We can’t wait to give you a shoutout in a future episode. WishIdKnownForWriters.com/Support
Lessons Learned from a Second Kickstarter:
- Launch/planning How Sara kept track of everything What Sara did differently and what she repeated Kickstarter changes
Links mentioned:
Sara’s Kickstarter page
Author Ecosystem
Time Stamps:
0:27 Introduction 4:03 Launch/planning 11:16 Recruiting other authors 17:04 How Sara kept track of everything 19:46 What Sara did differently 26:59 Kickstarter changes 31:39 Tips on FulfillmentTranscript:
Sara Rosett [00:00:24]:
Welcome to Wish I known that podcast. I’m Sara Rosett.
Jami Albright [00:00:27]:
And I’m Jami Albright, and this week on the show, we’re gonna talk to Sara about her very successful Kickstarter.
Sara Rosett [00:00:34]:
Yes. The second one. So this will be, like, lessons learned from doing it two times and what you can how I modified things and stuff like that. So, yes, I was very, very happy with the way it went.
Jami Albright [00:00:47]:
You guys can can be me because I always let Sara do things first, and then she tells me what’s good and what’s not good. Yeah.
Sara Rosett [00:00:55]:
And I would definitely recommend Kickstarter.
Jami Albright [00:00:58]:
Yeah. She does recommend it a lot.
Sara Rosett [00:01:00]:
Yeah. So we’ll get to that in a minute.
Jami Albright [00:01:02]:
Yeah. Yeah. Anything going on with you this week?
Sara Rosett [00:01:05]:
Well, I’m out of town. I’m in the mountains. Took a little break and I have been doing a lot of, no hiking this time. Just walking around little villages. Shopping and eating. That’s basically it. But we did see elk yesterday, which was very cool. It was like, we went to Estes Park. It’s not that far. Yeah. Where we were. And and they just, like, roam around the town. They were just pulling on grass and then, like, in a little In the medium, like, where you turn into the town. I was like, yeah. It’s crazy. So, anyway, so that’s like the all all the excitement we’ve had. It’s been pretty pretty quiet. And I’ve been in the background. I’ve been doing some of the stuff to get ready for, the fulfillment for the Kickstarter. That’s pretty easy to do on the side. What about you?
Jami Albright [00:01:54]:
Not much. I’ve been and my daughter’s helping with kids. She’s, her husband’s out of town. And so, I’ve I’ve done work. I’ve just not written a whole lot. You know, it to do it kind of in the creases of the day because when there are 5 kids around.
Sara Rosett [00:02:15]:
Yeah. I’m impressed you’re getting anything done. I mean, that’s amazing.
Jami Albright [00:02:19]:
So, They’re at gymnastics right now. That’s why I’m able to see podcast done, and that’s great because, I mean, they’re fun, and I have played Oh, I don’t even know how many in the double digits of the matching game. That is their favorite game, and I have played it. They have beat me multiple multiple times, not that I’m letting them win, which is sad. But, anyway, that that’s what I’ve been doing.
Jami Albright [00:02:48]:
Yeah. Well, we have new supporters, don’t we?
Sara Rosett [00:02:53]:
We do. Yes. We do.
Jami Albright [00:02:56]:
Emily North, and she, chose the books and Bella, and she chose the harm and we just thank you guys so much. We are so appreciative of your support and listening to the show and monetarily supporting us. We we just can’t thank you enough.
Sara Rosett [00:03:16]:
Yes. And we’re just so thankful for the people who are sticking with us and just We really appreciate it.
Jami Albright [00:03:23]:
Yeah. Yeah. We really do. We do. I mean, you know, 3 years is a long time for 3 and a half years. Long time to have a podcast and we, we just appreciate you guys coming on and, talking to it. I mean, not coming on, but listening to us. And, we just really can’t think you enough. So
Sara Rosett [00:03:47]:
Yeah. Yeah. We’re we’re glad for every supporter we have and we’re just very thankful.
Jami Albright [00:03:52]:
Yep. Yep. Do you have anything else before we jump in to Kickstarter?
Sara Rosett [00:03:57]:
Yeah. Let’s do that.
Okay. So I made some notes and kinda broke it out about, like, things that I had learned and One of the things people have a lot of questions with is the launching and the planning, and that it does take a lot of time, but it was not as time consuming this time as it was last time. Because I kinda knew what I needed to do. And so it didn’t take maybe quite as long, but it still took a long time, like, to do the images and kind of plan the page, but I had a template from the last one. So I sort of just took that one and copied it and just redid everything with the new book. But I was still worried. I was still very, nervous about it. And we had Joanna Penn on the podcast when her podcast, her, Kickstarter was launching her first when she talked about how scared she was. And I was scared too a whole lot the first time. more nervous this time, but still that fear was still there. I think there’s just something about you’re putting something out in the world that’s got the cost and, you know, people can see you if it’s successful or not, and that’s that’s pressure. You know?
Jami Albright [00:05:12]:
It is pressure. It is pressure because you know, we all have egos and, even though Sara’s doesn’t seem like she does, she does.
Sara Rosett [00:05:24]:
Well, I want it to do well. Can’t see. I can’t be in the red.
Jami Albright [00:05:25]:
That’s a big deal. That’s a big deal. You you want you want what you do to be successful and you don’t wanna look silly and you don’t wanna have wasted your time. Yeah. But talk to me a minute about the launching and planning. So, like, you said images. Like, is that just, like, one page or, I mean, do you have to come up with multiple days worth of things like that?
Sara Rosett [00:05:51]:
Oh, well, like, you just have to do the images for your page. Like, you have they call it a story and it’s basically a sales page. And, you know, I’ve went through, Russell and Monica’s Class the get your book selling on Kickstarter in their course. And now that’s moved into the author ecosystem. Yeah. So if you’re interested in that, you can find it there. But, like, they show you how to lay out the page and their, proponents of, like, a long sales page where you have all the information like you address everything people could question or wanna know. So you have to have some images.
Sara Rosett [00:06:23]:
in there to kinda break up the text. Yeah. And then, Kickstarter has changed their format. And, now, used to, you could have a reward, and it was all text. And now you have you can put an image in there that shows your reward. So people can look down the side at a glance and go, oh, I want the — audio book and the ebook, and I’ll pick this 1 or whatever. But that’s still, like, if you have 1015 rewards, that’s 10or 15 new images. And I had that down a little bit later that we would talk about that, but let’s just talk about it now because that’s It’s time consuming to create those. And then you have to think about, like, how they look. You want them to look pretty, and you want them to have a theme. You know, like, if your book is dark and scary, you want your images to kinda convey that darkness, and my book’s not. So I tried to find images that were like light and have bright And I used book brush and just went in and created one image because they have certain size requirements.And I just created everything in that same size but I used a lot of their, I forgot what they’re called. You go in and you can create the, like, they have the template and they can add your book to it. It’s like the image that’s like it looks like it’s laying on a table or something like that.
Jami Albright [00:07:36]:
Right.
Sara Rosett [00:07:40]:
I use those, and that helped a lot. But then I tried to have some of them that were I couldn’t convey in pictures, like, some of them I had, like an audiobook and ebook, and I put those together into the picture that would go over the reward, But then some of them were, like, a bunch of things bundled together, and I couldn’t, you know, that would be too many things in, like, a little tiny space. So I just used a font and wrote that, like, paperback times 5, like, for the, book club tier. And, like, I made sure that that font was purple, and it looked good. With the book cover, which was blue. So I kinda had, like, blue and purple tones for the whole. So you kinda have to think about all that and that takes some time to fig out. And I’m not very good at graphics, but it because I could use, like, book brush and Canva it went a lot better much either.
Jami Albright [00:08:30]:
So I’m I’m just kinda asking you questions. Like, you go ahead. Like, somebody that’s not ever. Seen a Kickstarter, you know, or hasn’t really investigated too thoroughly. So that’s why I asked that question.
And so the planning, like, how far out did you start planning?
Sara Rosett [00:08:50]:
I probably should have started sooner. I have a tendency to do one project cut it off, and then I start another one. And I think I did this one for about it was probably about 3 to 4 weeks getting ready, but I was doing, like, other small things, but that was, like, my main focus. You kinda have to warm up your audience Let them know what it is. And you don’t wanna be, like, from 1 week to the next. Hey. I’m doing a Kickstarter, next week. You kinda wanna stares stepping into it.
Jami Albright [00:09:23]:
And so speaking of, like, timing of planning and stuff, what You say to avoid holidays and end of the weekday?
Sara Rosett [00:09:33]:
When you because you wanna think about, like, when you’re gonna start and when you’re gonna end. So you have there’s so many decisions you have to make. You can’t get decision fatigue with doing this because like you you have to decide how many days your campaign is gonna run? And then I tried to place it where it was. None of it would fall over a holiday weekend, and mine was, like, it started in the like, I wanted to end beef either before or after labor day. So I you kinda have to because people are on holiday and
Jami Albright [00:10:01]:
Yeah.
Sara Rosett [00:10:01]:
You know, so I timed mine so that it wouldn’t end it wouldn’t fall on a holiday, and I wanted it to end on a weekday evening because you can set it to end at a certain time because people get busy on the weekends. And I just figured more people be in their routine, you know, on a Tuesday instead of, like, a Saturday. So you because there is like a boost at the end, Kickstarter emails all the people who have said, you know, let me know about this campaign. They email them again at the end of the campaign. So it would be sad, like, if they were out of town, you know, Saturday Sunday, and it ended on Sunday night. And I got the email on Monday morning.
Jami Albright [00:10:39]:
Right. Yeah.
Sara Rosett [00:10:40]:
Yeah. So I did mine for 2 weeks this time instead of 17 days. So, yeah, I figured that was more manageable for me.
Jami Albright [00:10:53]:
And what else did you have to do in the launching and planning stage?
Sara Rosett [00:10:57]:
Well, one thing that really helped me last time was I recruited authors to give away a bonus book. And so, like, if people signed up during the 1st week, they got, a set of books. And Then if they signed up in the 2nd week, they got a different set of books. But the people who signed up the 1st week got all the books. Does that make sense?
Jami Albright [00:11:16]:
Mhmm. Mhmm.
Sara Rosett [00:11:16]:
Yeah. So the people who sign it the 1st week would get the 1st and 2nd week. And, so but that took some time and I I learned last time that you pretty much or for me, I pretty much had to contact authors individually, tell them what I was doing and explain it. And because a lot of the a lot of my, like, mystery authors, they’ve heard a Kickstarter, but they haven’t done one. And so there’s a lot of explanation. And I think if you’re in a different genre that people are more familiar with it, and I what, like, the bonus incentives or backer perks are. And I’d be like, sure. You know, they know, but there’s a lot of, like, contacting, trying people down and figuring out, you know, how to do it, book vault to, distribute them. So, like, when the campaign’s from, but, yeah, so there’s a lot of that, that took some time. And then I did do a couple of emails to my list you know, letting them know about it, letting them know they could follow the page and sign up for, to be notified when went live. So, yeah, that’s kind of most of the preliminary. And then, of course, you have, like, you have to figure out what your rewards are, and that was easy for me this time. Because I had made a lot of those decisions last time, and I knew what worked
Jami Albright [00:12:33]:
So — Well, I have question then about the
bonus books Do you purchase those?
Sara Rosett [00:12:41]:
No. Others are donating them for free. So, like, if you have a first in series free, that works really well. And, they’re, you know, and I let the author’s note upfront that basically it’s is promotion for them because I told them, you know, it those books, I have a little thing on the story campaign page. That I left up there, and it will stay up there forever. So those books will always be there. And I mentioned them in my updates. And also in my newsletter, to my list. It’s like, I’m kind of promoting them and highlighting them, and then hopefully, they’re going to gain new readers. Yeah. Yeah. And then, like, if they do expire in the future, I’m happy to, you know, provide a book for them.
Jami Albright [00:13:29]:
And how many how many authors did you recruit?
Sara Rosett [00:13:33]:
I had let’s see. I had 4 books going out the 1st week. And I think 3 books the 2nd week. One author, donated 2 books, like, I’m gonna put 2 books out. Just because the way her series was set up. And I had more than that last time. And I thought, you know, I think we’re fine if we cut that back just a little bit. only and because, like, last time I had the week books for weeks 1, 2, and 3, because the third week is longer. So this time, I just did This is your big one bonus, and this is with 2 bonuses, and that’s it. And I call them bonuses instead of perks because I think a lot of people don’t know what backer perks are.
Jami Albright [00:14:14]:
Yeah. Did you, did you have more the 1st week than you did the 2nd week?
Sara Rosett [00:14:22]:
Yes. And then, yeah, I think so. I have I’m still waiting for Kickstarter to, like, pull all the numbers together to get the final counts. But, yeah, I had a lot of interest that 1st week, which was really good.
Jami Albright [00:14:34]:
I’m sorry. I wasn’t clear. Did you have more Did you give away more author book bonus books the 1st week? Like like did you give away four the 1st week and two the 2nd week.
Sara Rosett [00:14:43]:
Yes. Yeah. 2nd week.
Yeah. And then so the in those books, they won’t actually go out until I deliver all the rewards. And so they haven’t gone out yet, but they will when I deliver all the digital stuff. Just to keep it simple. Because if I start sending stuff out now, I’m gonna go crazy. I need to do it all.
Jami Albright [00:15:02]:
Okay. Those are all digital books. Right?
Sara Rosett [00:15:08]:
Yeah. Just put through book funnel.
Jami Albright [00:15:12]:
See, it’s not that I mean, it’s a lot of stuff, and we’re gonna talk about how you kept track of everything. But, really, It’s not I mean, the fulfillment part is just your stuff. Right?
Sara Rosett [00:15:25]:
Yes. And, And and the way you set up your campaign is can make it more complicated or more simple. You know? So, like, if you only have digital rewards, it’s gonna be so easy to fulfill compared to somebody who has lots of if you have Like, if you have 3 books, the your campaign is 3 books and you have paperback and hardcover versions and, like, large print and all that, that’s more complicated. You know? So
Jami Albright [00:15:56]:
Yeah.
Sara Rosett [00:15:57]:
So, yeah, I would say, like, there’s a ton into upfront. And then, like, you kinda have to shift gears for the fulfillment. And I feel like that’s where you make people happy. Like, they’re excited in the beginning to be part of it. But then if you don’t, Give them the rewards. Like, if you don’t keep them informed and let them know what’s going on and then you. Like, if they paid a lot of money for a hardcover, and they are and it arrives and they don’t feel like it’s a special thing, they may be a little disappointed, I think. So, like, I’m gonna put extra time and money into packaging. And, you know, just making it feel special. You know?
Jami Albright [00:16:36]:
Right. I love that. I love that.
Sara Rosett [00:16:37]:
So there will be more time on the fulfillment?
Jami Albright [00:16:44]:
Yeah. I have a simple Like, I wanna make I want things to be simple, but I tend to create things complicate in a complicated way.
Sara Rosett [00:16:57]:
I feel like I’m just seeing it. They’ve been called out.
Jami Albright [00:17:04]:
So how do you keep track of everything?
Sara Rosett [00:17:06]:
Okay. So, I use a Google doc and I put everything there. I and I copied, like, once I had my final version of the story page, I just copied that and pasted it in there so I’d have it later. And I did the same thing for the reward tiers. My email drafts, my Kickstarter updates. I just put everything in there. So I’ll have it later, and it’s all in one place because that helps me insta kinda get places. And before I did that, I had a Google spreadsheet with the budget, and I had the tiers and how much — they cost and how much it was gonna cost me to fulfill it. And that’s some of the preliminary work you have to do. You have to figure out You know, how much it’s gonna cost to get printed mailed to you if you’re signing everything, and then how much it’s gonna cost you to mail it again to your supporters, you know, for the physical things. And, then I had a folder and dropbox for all the images And then I broke it out, you know, like, I had, like, a folder for reward images, art and sketches, the map, the book cover, You know, just everything that was gonna be part of the Kickstarter I put in there so I could find it later. And I did do some character sketches I had an artist do character sketches for me, and I had a map done. So those are, like, extra things that I just kinda did along when I was working on other projects. I was like, okay. I know I’m gonna do character sketches for the next book. So I found somebody and, you know, all those take time. So I would definitely not leave that stuff until, like, the month before. I would work on that a little bit further out.
Jami Albright [00:18:35]:
Okay. And, you found your artist and you said before on the podcast through Instagram. Correct?
Sara Rosett [00:18:42]:
I think, you know, he was on Twitter. And I did not know that there are these hashtags people use on Twitter for different types of art. And so I was just searching hashtags for, like, flapper art and 1920s art and stuff like that. And, lots of miss Fisher, fan art out there. And, but anyway, I found him that way. He he’s a cartoonist. He does his own graphic novels, and he’s done a couple of kicksters himself, but he has that historical 1920s vibe. And so I contacted him and He was happy to do it, and, yeah, it was great. And so, like, one of the things I did during the campaign was I asked him to answer two questions for me. And then I put that in my one of my updates to the Kickstarter people saying, hey. Here’s the artist a little bit more because I I wanna talk about things other than — myself, you know, I was like, let’s talk to Dave, give you him for, like, a short little paragraph and highlight what he’s doing. And I think that makes people more interested in the whole thing.
Jami Albright [00:19:46]:
I love that. That’s so smart. Okay. So what do you wish you’d known the first time I’m you did a kick starter,
and what did you do differently this time?
Sara Rosett [00:20:00]:
I well, I do remember last time I really wished I’d known how much time it’s gonna take to do the story page and especially all the images And I tried a whole bunch of different types of rewards last time. And so this time, I’ve kinda pared them down. I got rid of the I had an online book club. People could sign up, like, that we would get together after the campaign and talk about the book. And that really just didn’t resonate. My people, they were just not that interested in that. For the higher tier, I added a physical, puzzle like a wooden puzzle with the cover, and it’s very cool looking. And so I just decide to try that this time. For, I think for authors, it’s harder to come up with those higher tier rewards. And I’m not Some authors love, like, getting together with their readers and, you know, like, they wanna have a end of campaign party.For me, that stresses me out because, like, I don’t it just stresses me out. So it’s like, okay, I’m not gonna do anything like that this time. Even though I would have a great time when I did it, It’s like the, anxiety, I guess, of I’m in charge of it, and I have to plan it and run it. Just kinda stress me out. So So I didn’t do anything like that this time. And then I did the shorter, timeline 14 days instead of 17, and that was that was fine. I think You know, if you do set they say the longer the campaign is. The more successful it usually is. Yeah. But I think you have to figure out what works for you And, that’s a long, like, 17, you can do it up to, like, I think 45 days or something. That’s a long time. To try and maintain interest and excitement. and I added a paperback version this time, which I didn’t have before, because the first one was a special edition that already had a paper back out. Yeah. And I was trying to keep it as simple as possible for the awards. So this time, I had a paperback version and a hardcover version.
Jami Albright [00:22:04]:
Oh, wow. Yeah. And So you’ll have to wow. You’ll have to fulfill both those. I may I may be recruited to come to your house
Sara Rosett [00:22:13]:
To come help pack
Jami Albright [00:22:13]:
I hate boxes. , sign me up. And but didn’t I hear you say that for your stress goal of $20,000, you were gonna do a game or something?
Sara Rosett [00:22:29]:
Yes. I added that at the end, and that was something that the last time I didn’t think about stretch goals at all. And this time, I had a a plan, but I think he, like, you modify stuff as you go in the campaign. And so this time, it was doing great. And I was like, well, I’ll just hold off, and I’ll announce the new one on Monday. And then, like, the last Monday, and I was like, oh, we’re some of the things that I was going to do, I ended up changing things, basically. But, yeah, I’m doing the game. And that’s been a learning curve. Let me tell you. I’ve never done a murder mystery party game.
Jami Albright [00:23:05]:
I bet!
Sara Rosett [00:23:05]:
I’ve been working on that, while traveling and it’s coming together. It’s almost done. . Yeah. So people who are excited about that.
Jami Albright [00:23:17]:
Yeah. I bet they were. I bet they were. I I will tell you one of my the worst experiences of my life, though, is playing a game that my grandson made up. There’s no end to it and and there’s no way to tell if you’re winning. So I hope it’s better than that one.
Sara Rosett [00:23:36]:
Well, this one will definitely have an end.
Jami Albright [00:23:38]:
that’s all I’m saying. Yeah.
Sara Rosett [00:23:40]:
Yeah. I get it.
Jami Albright [00:23:42]:
There could be a difference there. Yeah. So what would what did you repeat this time that, That you did last time.
What worked?
Sara Rosett [00:23:56]:
I did a long pre launch and Once you launch, there’s certain things you don’t have access to. And I cannot remember what the total count was. But I think last time it was at least a 150, maybe a 180. And I had at least that many this time, possibly 200. But since I didn’t write it down, I’m not sure. But, like, if you can get, like, a 100 to a 150 followers, it’s gonna help a lot just because there’s more interest. And if you have all those followers, Kickstarter emails them when your, project goes live. And then if they go to it, then it generates traffic and And if people back right away, it really just helps. So, yeah, I did the I would say get you have to go in and create your story page. Like, you put in the basics of everything in Kickstarter, and then you can get it approved, even though it’s not finalized according to what you wanna do, but, like, you have to have all the You have to have a draft in for your story and your tiers and all that, then you can get it approved, and then you can start sending out the link to get people to follow you there. And that’s been that was a big help. So I would definitely do that again. And the same thing. I did the same thing last time as I just did one book. Like, I did the hardcover and paperback versions of one book. And I did that last time. And there are some people that they’ll do a trilogy or they’ll do, like, two books. And I just can’t do that. It’s just too much for me. Like, even when I’m a backer and I go look at some of those page, And I’ve got the options. You know, do you want book 1, book 1, 2, 1, 2, and 3? And I was like, oh, I just can’t. It’s just too much for me right now. I definitely stuck with one book.
Jami Albright [00:25:37]:
Right. Well, I have a question because I’ve never done I’ve never signed up for a pre pre launch page of anybody backed. I’ve just gone in and backed. But so what I wanna know is if someone signs up for a pre launch page, like your people are, you know, your readers are older, Mine are 2. And, I mean, is Kickstarter is it pretty user friendly? Like, when they’re when they’re sending the emails out to them? Do they help?
Sara Rosett [00:26:07]:
Yeah. Well, they don’t like, they have plenty of customer service, like, help pages. So but basically the notification, like, sign up to notify me. It’s just it’s like a you’re signing up at any website. They don’t they don’t I’m trying to remember if they’ve collect. Credit card information. I can’t remember because it’s been so long since I signed up. But it’s pretty, you know, like, if they’re used to doing online And then when they sign up for the reward, It doesn’t collect their pledge until the campaign actually closes and funds. So that was another thing I told everybody. It was like, you can back this if you and you can change your mind. You can change tier levels and all that. And I didn’t have a whole lot of customer service questions. So I think it’s fairly I don’t think it’s too difficult.
Jami Albright [00:26:59]:
No. I mean, I don’t find it difficult to, you know, support me back. I just what your experience was with your older audience. Well, that’s great.
And so Kickstarter made some changes.
Sara Rosett [00:27:14]:
Yeah. We talked about, one of those was that you can add the images, your, rewards And I think you really need that now because I think people look for that now. I don’t think you have to do that, but I think it’s a good idea. And then, now they have this great, beta dash board. And, like, when you go in, it tells you it’s so detailed. It tells you, like, how many people backed by the hour and
Jami Albright [00:27:39]:
Oh, wow.
Sara Rosett [00:27:40]:
Yeah. And, like, you can do, like, you can send out links or referral links that’ll show like, you can track where the clicks came from. So, like, I did one for every newsletter I did, so I could see which ones were most effective. And I did one from my social media, which That was not that effective. I’ll just tell you that right now. It was like, I’m not super active on social media. So I’m not surprised with that. You know, most of my backers came from, like, my newsletter and
Jami Albright [00:28:07]:
Your newsletter. Yeah.
Sara Rosett [00:28:08]:
Yeah. And, and Kickstarter. Kickstarter referred a lot of people. So, yeah, so, but, anyway, this dashboard that they have that’s so good and detailed, it goes away. After your project closes. And I went in later to download it, and it’s gone. So so you only have access to it. So if you do wanna go in and download all your data, before the project closes, wish I’d known that. And then and now, like, my campaign, I didn’t have to do this, but I think the 20 like the end of the month, the end of August, they changed their requirements for AI. And they just want there’s they their statement is they just want transparency. So that if somebody backs your campaign, they want backers to know whether or not you used AI. So now you have to state how you used AI within the campaign and within your project. And, you know, I don’t really know what that is because I haven’t gone through. Like, I haven’t set up a project now that they’re asking for that. So that’s a different change and something that you just need to be aware of that you’re gonna have to answer that question and figure out how you’re going to. I think it’s gonna be really hard to describe How you used AI? Because did you use AI in creating the images like in Canva? I mean, do we need to declare that?
Jami Albright [00:29:32]:
that’s a that’s a question. That’s a that’s a question kind of across the board right now.
Sara Rosett [00:29:37]:
Yes. With everything.
Jami Albright [00:29:39]:
Yeah. And with everything.
Sara Rosett [00:29:40]:
In fact, I went in yesterday to update a pre order, and now they have a question in Did you see that? They just are collecting information right now. And I’ve I’ve mine with my answer was no because it was an older book. I haven’t done anything AI related with it, but I was like, I don’t know. That’ll be interesting.
Jami Albright [00:30:02]:
Yeah. Well, anything else we need to know, you think, about Kickstarter?
Sara Rosett [00:30:09]:
I think that’s that’s like the main things that I took away this time. It had I mean, the main thing is you want to get everything where it looks good. And then you wanna get your people excited about it. And then after it’s over, and then you wanna maintain the enthusiasm. And then after it’s over, you wanna fulfill and make sure it’s a good experience. Oh, and one other thing I did differently this time is I had the letters last time that people were so excited about, the printed letters that are mailed.
Jami Albright [00:30:44]:
Yes.
Sara Rosett [00:30:44]:
And I learned things with that about how to do that better. And one thing that was really confusing to people was that the letters would go out And the mail delivery, some of them would arrive with, like, letter 2 would arrive before letters 1. And so then they open it and then be like, what? This doesn’t make sense. So I did a whole little post in in my Kickstarter updates and on my newsletter about what’s gonna be different. And, like, the envelopes are gonna be numbered, and the letters are gonna be color coded. So, like, letter 1 is, like, say blue and letter 2. Green. So that way you can tell right away because people were getting them mixed up. They didn’t know which. Because they were all black and white last time, and I didn’t remember them. Right. Because I thought that they would deliver on time, and it would be obvious. But, you know, so I think if something like that happens, then if you do it again, you need to say, okay. This is what I’m doing to make it better. That’s a big deal.
Jami Albright [00:31:39]:
Yeah. Oh, that’s good. Well, And then fulfillment, like,
How long do you tell them it’s gonna take you to fulfill things?
Sara Rosett [00:31:48]:
Okay. So this is Claire Taylor’s tip. She’s like, Give yourself plenty of time to fulfill. And then if you’re full early, it’s great. You know? And I did said I would deliver the digital rewards in September, which I think is gonna be fine, and then the physical book in October. So any, like, anything physical should go out in October. And I think that’s gonna work fine, but I could’ve I could’ve extended both of those by a month. Do you know what I mean? Like, I could’ve done 2 months for digital and 3 months for physical. But I was I wanna get everything out before.
Jami Albright [00:32:25]:
You want it Off your plate.
Sara Rosett [00:32:26]:
I do. I wanna finish it off. But there’s certain things that, you know, you can’t control, like, shipping at control. And if you promise a print book in, like, 3 weeks, I think that’s really really cutting it close because you have to wait. It takes Kickstarter about 2 weeks to, collect all the rewards and send the money to you. And then you after you do that, then you have a final count of what you really need. So you don’t really wanna start fulfilling stuff until you have that. So that’s 2 weeks there that you’re waiting. You know? If you see a film more weeks, that’s kind of a short time.
Jami Albright [00:33:06]:
And awesome. I’ve learned stuff. I’m sure our listeners have learned stuff. I will say that if you have more questions about this, we’ll we’ll We’ll put something in the, Facebook group. And then if we do another episode on Kickstarter, we’ll try to answer your questions, or we’ll answer them in the
Sara Rosett [00:33:28]:
in the group.
Jami Albright [00:33:29]:
I’m we’ll enter them in the group. I’m signing Sara up for something as I do
Sara Rosett [00:33:36]:
Well, if we have a ton of questions, then we can do another episode on it.
Jami Albright [00:33:39]:
Yeah. Exactly. We just have 1 or 2.
Sara Rosett [00:33:42]:
Yeah. I’ll just answer them in the group. Yeah. That’d be great. So are you thinking of doing a Kickstarter still?
Jami Albright [00:33:48]:
I am still thinking, but then you just made me
Sara Rosett [00:33:52]:
Did I stress you out?
Jami Albright [00:33:53]:
On the on the only doing one book? Because if I was gonna do it, I would do the four books in my bride series.
Sara Rosett [00:34:00]:
But you were thinking of doing a a slip case or something like that?
Jami Albright [00:34:04]:
A slip case.
Sara Rosett [00:34:05]:
Well, if you only have that as the option, that they’re just getting the slip case, then that’s only one option for you to fulfill. The thing that stresses me out was like, if you need 4 copies of book 1 and 2 copies of book 2 and 1. But if you have it as a set, that might be one way to do that.
Jami Albright [00:34:24]:
Right. But then I would have, yeah,
Sara Rosett [00:34:26]:
And then you could do your digital rewards. They those could be, you know, they could get one book or 3 books or 4 books or whatever.
Jami Albright [00:34:35]:
Yeah. That was true. Yeah. Maybe I could do that. We could talk offline. probably up to the 1st year. I mean, that’s just when I’m thinking about it because, you know, I can’t do anything before then. I mean, because we’re running into holidays. And
Sara Rosett [00:34:52]:
And you don’t and that was another thing. You don’t wanna do a Kickstarter after about I would say probably October because a lot of people use a Kickstarter or the they’re like, oh, I’ll get this and give it as a gift, or if that’s even a thought, You don’t you don’t wanna be running 1 in November because it’s gonna be really hard to fulfill it before Christmas.
Jami Albright [00:35:12]:
Well, and then also you And then you also have issues with shipping and, I mean, you know, it’s holiday shipping and stuff like that. I would think that would be an issue. So — Yeah. Pardon me. So, yeah, this has been great. Thank you for answering all our questions.
Sara Rosett [00:35:30]:
Thank you for interviewing me.
Jami Albright [00:35:32]:
You’re welcome. You can find us at our website. And Sarah’s gonna tell you what that is because I never can remember
Sara Rosett [00:35:44]:
It’s wish I’d done then for writers.com.
Jami Albright [00:35:46]:
And, we did get an email on our, our new email. So that’s on our web is that on the website now?
Sara Rosett [00:35:56]:
I don’t think it is. We’ll think I’ve been a little distracted. We’ll try and get that on there.
Jami Albright [00:36:02]:
I wish I’d known then atgmail.com. There we go. And thanks to Adriel Wiggins for doing our admin and Alexa Larkburg for editing and producing the, podcast and Thanks to all our supporters.
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